Worn Out From the Heat

This boy is so beat up. Three back to back road trips and a house full of projects have old Jamie worn out. We are getting into summer heat now with the temperatures routinely in the mid 90’s and heat indexes in the 105°+ range. The perfect weather to sip iced tea under a cooling ceiling fan. Instead I’ve been digging and setting bricks in order to finish up the last patio addition project.

The brickwork is completed.

Debbie was so funny on our walk of the neighborhoods this morning. I was on a tear telling her of my Tuesday adventures.

The day started with a rowing session on the river. There were enough people to take out two sweeps. Our one older sweep "Big Sky Amigo" is functional but it has a lot of wood for the infrastructure. That makes it quite heavy to transport from the boathouse to the river. I helped to carry both boats to the water. We were drenched with sweat from moving the sweeps and launch before we pushed off the dock. We had a great row, doing drills concentrating on pushing back first with the legs, then opening up the back after the legs are extended, and then finally using the arms to pull back and finish up the motion. After turning around we rowed on the sixes using heavy pressure for half the strokes. I was beat by the time we got back to the dock.

I got to the Y at 10:45. I forced myself through a workout. Normally when I use the Concept II rowers I like to break down my sessions to two or three segments of 10 minutes each. After I warm up I try to duplicate times and strokes we did at the regatta, keeping the stroke rate at 33 per minute doing 1000 meters under four minutes. There was no way that was going to happen…..

Once home the bricks were sanded down and I got to work dispersing the dirt pile from digging up the new patio addition. The pile was hoed and broken up. She worst of dirt was sifted through an old screen to separate the pea gravel.

Then the grass had to be mowed and trimmed back. The back yard is finally coming into its own now.

I have a top section of an old power pole that is used as a bird feeder base and scratching post for Daggy and Stump. Its original location was in the middle of the new patio. I relocated it to the other side of the yard. It has been quite a while since our last rain. The ground is now rock hard. It took forever to dig a hole for the power pole with the two handled post hole digger

At about 6:00 I came into the house to chug down water and cool off under the ceiling fan in the bedroom. When you are drenched with sweat the cool house feels almost cold. When the air conditioner is running standing over the floor vent in the Utilkilt brings back memories of Marilyn Monroe. Mercifully, the heavy canvas does not fly up like Marilyn's flimsy dress! The Hunter ceiling fan in the bedroom was stopped! DAMN it!!! I was so pissed over this one. Back when I first bought this house in 1996 I splurged and got a Hunter Original Ceiling fan. Homo Depot had just opened up in Buffalo and at that time they only carried Hunter ceiling fans. The "Original" fan was on sale. I'm sure I have the receipt on file, but if I remember right the price was in the $300.00 range It was top of the line then, heavy as hell, manufactured to the same specks as the old fans, and the only fan that was still made in the USA. It has a constant oil bath to lubricate the works that insures many years of care free use.

The fan that stopped is a current Hunter Original fan only about five years old, manufactured in China. It is not of the same construction or quality of that first fan of mine. I need a bedroom fan so that stopped Original Hunter fan was taken down, and replaced with the first Hunter fan I bought back in 1996. That fan has been in constant operation for over 10 years with NO trouble at all.

Another project will be to tear into the stopped fan and see what needs to be cleaned out and lubricated. It is always something…..

By this time things are getting dark outside and I have not even had supper yet. Gary called. He was babbling away trying to get me aggravated in his “passive aggressive” way. Finally I had to tell him that I was doing everything in my power to keep sane controlling things I had a chance of controlling. Anything else right now I’m not messing with. “I’m hungry and need to fix up supper. Let me sign off.” was how I ended our conversation.

Hearing these stories Debbie said how all the pieces fit together. “You get so involved in these things and then when the weather heats up you get so crabby!!!” She is so right. Once these current projects get finished up I’m taking some down time to just sit back and RELAX!!!

That will include getting caught up with my poor journal. Thee are some three half written entries that need to be completed. I'm a month behind!!